Don’t get me wrong
I won’t stay long
I wanna stay here
Drinking all the beer
Please don’t take me home
At a craft beer festival in Timisoara, Romania, drunk Serbs and Hungarians introduced an American to this English football chant. Alcohol and poor translation changed the lyrics a little, but the point was clear. It was nine o’clock in the evening, Timisoara’s 1st Hazefest was closing, but no one was going home.
Stuck in a Balkan IPA Haze: Timisoara’s 1st Hazefest
And why would we leave? A one day ticket to Timisoara’s 1st Hazefest was only 18 Euros. That ticket gave you a 0.15L tasting glass with the right to (in the organizers’ words) “All-You-Can-Handle” for over 80 different beers from 25 different breweries from around Europe. We entered the gate just after opening at 2pm. By 8pm, when they announced last call, we were only halfway through the beer list.
My math is horrible. Which is why I’m not a brewer.
Yet for the sake of booze I will crunch the numbers. There were 45 beers on this list. If the 0.15L glass received a full pour of each beer, that would be 6.75 Liters, or about 13 beers. Or an average Saturday night.
Offers of half pours were answered by my friend’s mocking laughter. Drinking a 0.075L sip of beer? Love you, but seriously, no.
Hazefest was (intentionally?) hard to find. It was at Timisoara’s Escape Hub, at the end of an unpaved road with an unmarked entrance in a decrepit industrial part of the city center. Tickets were only available in advance online, but then a last minute announcement was made to sell the remaining tickets at the door.
Srdjan and I entered in familiar company. From the mass of bearded, baseball-capped beer geeks, someone instantly hailed us as the “Pivoslav-JAI” guys. Clearly, he’s not a Slavic language-speaker. Our mad antics from the previous summer’s Budapest Beer Week and Timisoara Craft Beer Festival were well known. By the tenth tasting, all good intentions to discuss IBUs, hop varietals, aroma and other such beer things descend into drunken debauchery.
To wit, I didn’t wake up in my Airbnb the morning after. That’s good. However, I lost my tasting notes somewhere between the festival and a lovely stranger’s apartment.
All You Can Handle Haziness
Hazefest elicits images of juicy Double IPAs and New England IPAs. But this festival has many beer styles. Variety is necessary. No way one can dive into a NEIPA of 9% ABV at 3PM, then chase it with a dozen more of the same by 4pm.
I’m getting lost here, so ‘Where Is My Galaxy?’ Well, I did start the festival with a NEIPA. It’s only, uh, 8.5% ABV. Thanks to the Hungarian brewery, Brew Your Mind, for this juicy hoppy number.
The Balkans has more craft beer than you may think. Besides the 10 Romanian breweries, there were visitors from Hungary, Bulgaria and Serbia’s Dogma Brewery. What’s more surprising is that breweries from as far away as Russia, Spain and Norway all came to introduce their beers locally.
The organizers of Hazefest – and two of Romania’s best craft breweries -are Timisoara’s very own Bereta Brewing, and Hop Hooligans, from Bucharest. They offer a wide variety of experimental beers do many international collaborations with other European craft breweries.
Bereta Brewing has made incredibly diverse beers, and Hop Hooligans has already won accolades from BeerAdvocate as Romania’s best brewery. Their beers were the most requested pours at Hazefest. Fortunately, they’re local, so their kegs were never empty.
My Beer Is My Baby
After knocking back Romania’s finest craft beers, it was time again to visit their “brothers from across the border,” a new Hungarian brewery, Dealbreaker.
Srdjan and I didn’t know the brewery yet, but we recognized the Hungarian hovering in front of their stand, Peter. He was an organizer of the Budapest Beer Week. It had been half a year since we’d last seen him, and he had new company, a cute baby who he carried in a rucksack on his chest.
“Hey, Peter, #NeverGoFullCraft. Congratulations! You’re a father now.”
“Thank you. Yes, I’m a father.”
He paused, then pointed at our empty glasses, “Try my beer. A sour gose.”
He is very proud of his newborn…beer.
“Dealbreaker is yours? No, haven’t tried it.”
A gose could be a dealbreaker. Salt, vegetable and sourness are not what average drinkers think of in beer. Sour beers have already hit their peak in the USA, yet they’re still a novelty here, and many not-so-beer-geeky types may not like them.
I enjoyed it: full, tart, earthy and pulpy. I looked at Srdjan. He had a grimace on his face. I told him that sour beer takes a little time getting used to. According to the list, there were 17 other sour beers he could ease into.
I found another. And another.
Is This The Typical Craft Beer Scene?
My only experience with beer festivals in Europe outside of The Balkans has been at large, traditional festivals – like Oktoberfest. I haven’t yet visited any craft beer festivals in Western Europe. I can only compare this to craft beer festivals in the USA, of which I’ve been to many.
Festivals here are much smaller. You can still count all the regional festivals on both hands. I enjoy this: every event feels like a family reunion. You see the same faces every time, and most of them are real beer geeks; coming for the beer, and not just the scene.
Yet people don’t behave snobby. I haven’t noticed the constant one-upping and bragging that happens in the American craft beer groups. It’s not just about acquiring rare beers to price gouge them on Internet forums while talking shit on anyone who doesn’t know as much about beer as they do. People come to the craft beer festivals here to enjoy themselves. And to drink beer.
All they can handle.
Please Don’t Take Me Home: Bereta Taproom & Bottleshop
After the kegs were tapped, someone started up the football chant.
We had to leave the festival grounds, but no one went home. The owners of Bereta Brewing have their own bar, Bereta Taproom & Bottleshop. They kept it open late for the festival attendees. Since it was only three blocks away, no one objected to stumbling there. A line of beer geeks began filing out the gates of the Timisoara’s Escape Hub, singing and toasting all the way.
A few minutes later, our drinking parade filed into Bereta Taproom & Bottleshop. The single arched-roof room was full. After ordering, most of the patrons congregated outside. Others continued another block down the road to a nearby club, Cuib d’Arte. Here, I got in a discussion with a beer distributor from Norway, searching for potential investment in The Balkan. While we talked craft beer on a balcony, a dancefloor raged below us.
Srdjan had disappeared. But then I looked into the dancing crowd below me. There he was, chatting up two Romanian girls. I excused myself from the Norwegian, and went downstairs. Srdjan already had one girl by the hand and was spinning her in circles. The other stood alone, looking bored. She sipped from a glass of white wine. I had a can of Hop Hooligan’s Crowd Control – a heavy Double Dry Hopped NEIPA. I figured this wasn’t the time to talk craft beer.
Timisoara’s 1st Hazefest was over. But after that, the night became really…hazy. I’ll miss those tasting notes.
This was the first, and for a time, only Hazefest. After 2019, the hell of COVID-19 started and put the entire world on pause. But Hazefest returned after 2022. Now it’s in June in Bucharest, Romania. A one day ticket is still “All-You-Handle” for 35 Euro. They are available here: https://m.iabilet.ro/bilete-haze-fest-2022-71613/
For a guide to the best craft beer bars in Bucharest click: here
